Shortly after Babe Ruth attended the Yankee Stadium anniversary event he was in the hospital. He received hundreds of well-wishing letters and messages. This included a phone call from President Harry Truman. On July 26, 1948, Ruth attended the premiere of the film The Babe Ruth Story, a biopic about his life. Shortly after Ruth returned to the hospital for the final time. Cancer had eaten away at his body and he was barely able to speak. Ruth's condition gradually became worse, and in his last days, scores of reporters and photographers hovered around the hospital. Only a few visitors were allowed to see him, one of whom was the then National League President and future Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick. Frick had been a good friend of Ruth's since Ruth's early days as a Yankee and the ghostwriter for various articles supposedly written by Ruth. Ruth was so thin it was unbelievable. He had been such a big man and his arms were just skinny little bones, his face was so haggard. On August 16, the day after Frick's visit, Babe Ruth died at 8:01 p.m. at the age of 53. His body lay in repose in Yankee Stadium for two days; more than 200,000 people filed past the casket. Three days later 9,500 mourners crammed into the area around St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York for his funeral. Tens of thousands more lined the streets as his funeral cortege drove by. Ruth was buried in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York. The following epitaph by Cardinal Spellman appears on Babe Ruth's headstone: "May The Divine Spirit That Animated Babe Ruth To Win The Crucial Game Of Life Inspire The Youth Of America!
Let's hope Babe Ruth will inspire the youth of America not to use tobacco..